How many watts/cabinets do i need to gig with??

[DONZI97]

^ Solve this before considering spending any money whatsoever on your rig. Otherwise, you will upgrade only to find yourself with the misery of joining in on the volume war.

Tried, I talk them down, and then they inch their way up.

 

[ksandvik]

Tried, I talk them down, and then they inch their way up.

Get a non-partisan person telling them that that all they could hear of the guitars is a high noise pitch.

 

[moyles]

You asked for it. Here's the 1st generic thread for the FAQ sticky thread. This one gets asked a lot and we all have our different opinions. So post yours. Include answers for different gig sizes, types of music, etc. Feel free to post links to any of your favorite threads where this topic has been addressed as well.

i merged this thread with an old one i did - below is my original post and the original reply by sundouge.

There are many situations where a player can get away with using a small 100 watt combo or what have you. I'm not really adressing these type of situations, rather I'm coming from the perspective of advising someone who can only have one rig and wants enough flexibility volume wise to be able to play medium sized gigs, play with moderately loud guitar players and drummers, etc, and who doesn't want to find out in a year that what was fine for practice won't cut it in the gigging world.

There are two factors to consider, watts and speaker configuration. As far as watts go I feel that you should have an amp that will put out at least 200 watts into the speakers you are using, and that 400 watts is much closer to optimum. Before choosing an amp you should determine what speakers you are going to use and what the total impedance of the cabinet(s) will be so you can make sure you'll be actually using 200 - 400 watts at that impedence.

In terms of minimum speaker requirements i think a single 12", two 10" drivers, or a single 15" speaker is the bare minimum. I'm also in favor of having a two 8 ohm cabinets instead of one 4 ohm one if you can manage it. A 4 ohm 4x10 or 2x12 is actually great, but i'm not a huge fan of 4 ohm 2x10 cabs. (ditto for 4 ohm 1x12 or 1x15 cabs). All things being equal a 4 ohm 2x10 will be only slightly louder than an 8 ohm 2x10 on the same amp. You're better off saving your money and getting a second 2x10, 1x12 or 1x15 in the future which will give you more volume due to the additional speaker area.

quick question, been looking for an answer to this for ages now. which has to have higher wattage? cabinet or preamp? ive got a 200 watt cabinet and a 350 watt preamp? would that cause overheating? if yes, how do i fix the problem? thanks.

 

[RickenBoogie]

Preamps do not produce wattage, poweramps do. You may mean a bass head, (preamp/poweramp in one) but either way, there is no correct answer. Some people have more available wattage going into a lower rated cab, (headroom), while others push low wattage through cabs rated much higher. Both will work, though care must be used when the power gets way up there. Bottom line is, ANY amp can potentially blow up ANY speaker cab, without careful use of eq and gain.

 

[BassGen]

I gig with an Ampeg SVT 6-Pro which reportedly pushes 1100W at 4 ohms and it's feeding 2 410 Mesa cabs rated at 750W apiece. I only need to run it at 1/4 to 1/3 power to keep up with the band when we play. When I was learning about this stuff all I kept seeing was "overhead" so get more than you need and don't turn it up all the way. Besides any other reasons at full power you will get clipping and you will sacrifice the quality of your sound.

Sometimes the band asks why I carry so much but for me getting the good sound is at least partly about how much air you are pushing with the speakers and 8 delivers better than 4. We also don't mic our amps so in order to hear myself i find I need that second cab in the stack so the sound reaches my ears too.

We rehearse at my house so I usually use it but on those rare times we practice at someone elses place i have a GK Backline 600 into an SWR 210 cab. It does fine in small spaces but it doesn't sound as good as my main rig.

 

[BassGen]

quick question, been looking for an answer to this for ages now. which has to have higher wattage? cabinet or preamp? ive got a 200 watt cabinet and a 350 watt preamp? would that cause overheating? if yes, how do i fix the problem? thanks.

If you don't drive your speakers to the point of distortion you probably won't blow them up. However, running an underpowered Amp to drive huge cabinets will damage your amp and much quicker. At least so I've been told. Think about trying to use the motor from a SmartCar to move a loaded dump truck. The engine is gonna blow.

In other words, it's all about balance.

 

[JimmyM]

If you don't drive your speakers to the point of distortion you probably won't blow them up. However, running an underpowered Amp to drive huge cabinets will damage your amp and much quicker. At least so I've been told. Think about trying to use the motor from a SmartCar to move a loaded dump truck. The engine is gonna blow.

sorry but this is not true and it gets quoted and disproven almost on a daily basis. only overpowering blows cabs.

 

[SanDiegoHarry]

If you don't drive your speakers to the point of distortion you probably won't blow them up. However, running an underpowered Amp to drive huge cabinets will damage your amp and much quicker. At least so I've been told. Think about trying to use the motor from a SmartCar to move a loaded dump truck. The engine is gonna blow.

In other words, it's all about balance.

*fail*

Where's Bob from QSC when you need him, or is he tired of dispelling this myth?

 

[walkerci]

*fail*

Where's Bob from QSC when you need him, or is he tired of dispelling this myth?

Alternatively, I would suggest putting 4000 HorsePower from a locomotive prime mover into a Toyota transmission. ANY Toyota transmission and watch the metal shavings and smoke accumulate.

 

[csipe1]

Now, in terms of wattage, is it true that you might want to have 1.5x or 2x the wattage rating in your cab than your amp. So, a 350W amp might match well with a 600W cab?

 

[Lowtonejoe]

Now, in terms of wattage, is it true that you might want to have 1.5x or 2x the wattage rating in your cab than your amp. So, a 350W amp might match well with a 600W cab?

It depends on only one thing...how loud do you want to be.

Ideally, in terms of headroom, you can have a bazillion watts available but you still are targeting a clean (no unwanted distortion) signal that will produce no more watts (through the actual amp) than your cab can handle.

If 100w into a 700w cab is loud enough for you with enough headroom so that you aren't producing any unwanted distortion, you are fine. So 350w into a 600w cab is fine as long as you are loud enough.



Joe.

 

[Jimmy Riot]

I have an embarrassing confession to make: I ran my SWR SM900 wrong for YEARS and I'm glad / lucky that nothing bad happened. On these heads if you want to run mono you must use the banana plug spkr out in the middle, with the switch set to "mono". Otherwise if you use the 1/4inch outs you keep the switch to "stereo" and just use half of the amp's power (450w), usually the L out, --more than enough for most applications albeit unbenounced to me at the time

With relevance to this thread, even with my wrong hookup (switch set to mono while using the 1/4inch out) the approximate 450w? in to 8ohms was always enough for me. Now that I know better, I'm excited to see how the same 900 head behaves in to my 800w SVT 8x10 fridge PROPERLY running real full 900w mono. I just have to watch that I don't push the cab too hard in this fashion, but I can't imagine where I'd need to.

Especially with larger venues & stages I've always thought of my bass rig as my personal bass monitor because of the DI to the PA. Especially so in summer outdoor festival situations. It's a little ironic, because it's the small-to-mid size clubs where your amp rig is depended on more for supplying bass to the people.

But then there's TUBE watts... Put a [100w] Ampeg V4 head running 7581A tubes or 6550's in to two speaker cabinets and you will NOT be lacking in volume for most situations.

 

[Lowtonejoe]

I have an embarrassing confession to make: I ran my SWR SM900 wrong for YEARS and I'm glad / lucky that nothing bad happened. On these heads if you want to run mono you must use the banana plug spkr out in the middle, with the switch set to "mono". Otherwise if you use the 1/4inch outs you keep the switch to "stereo" and just use half of the amp's power (450w), usually the L out, --more than enough for most applications albeit unbenounced to me at the time

With relevance to this thread, even with my wrong hookup (switch set to mono while using the 1/4inch out) the approximate 450w? in to 8ohms was always enough for me. Now that I know better, I'm excited to see how the same 900 head behaves in to my 800w SVT 8x10 fridge PROPERLY running real full 900w mono. I just have to watch that I don't push the cab too hard in this fashion, but I can't imagine where I'd need to.

Especially with larger venues & stages I've always thought of my bass rig as my personal bass monitor because of the DI to the PA. Especially so in summer outdoor festival situations. It's a little ironic, because it's the small-to-mid size clubs where your amp rig is depended on more for supplying bass to the people.

But then there's TUBE watts... Put a [100w] Ampeg V4 head running 7581A tubes or 6550's in to two speaker cabinets and you will NOT be lacking in volume for most situations.

You will only produce 900w out of your SM-900 if you turn your gain up high enough for the amp to produce that many watts. You will probably never turn it up that high.

Watts are watts. Solid state or tube doesn't matter.

The thing with tube power amps is that the natural compression that occurs makes it seem louder than the given power rating.



Joe.

 

[Jimmy Riot]

You will only produce 900w out of your SM-900 if you turn your gain up high enough for the amp to produce that many watts. You will probably never turn it up that high.

Watts are watts. Solid state or tube doesn't matter.

The thing with tube power amps is that the natural compression that occurs makes it seem louder than the given power rating.



Joe.

Joe says:

You will only produce 900w out of your SM-900 if you turn your gain up high enough for the amp to produce that many watts. You will probably never turn it up that high.

Jimmy says: interesting, thanks.

Joe says: Watts are watts. Solid state or tube doesn't matter.
The thing with tube power amps is that the natural compression that occurs makes it seem louder than the given power rating.

Jimmy says: I respectfully disagree. What "seems" is what's real to me. You may be technically right but I feel that I am practically right. In the rooms & on the stages there is a huge practical sonic difference volume-wise between a 100w V4 and a 100w MosFet solid state nonsense amp or equivilant. You could double the solid-state numbers and I would still feel confidant in my stance.

 

[Lowtonejoe]

Jimmy says: I respectfully disagree. What "seems" is what's real to me. You may be technically right but I feel that I am practically right. In the rooms & on the stages there is a huge practical sonic difference volume-wise between a 100w V4 and a 100w MosFet solid state nonsense amp or equivilant. You could double the solid-state numbers and I would still feel confidant in my stance.

What 'seems' real to you is real...just not the way you think it is...regardless of the position of your feet.

I agree that a 100w tube amp will crush a 100w solid state amp but for reasons other than power output.

A watt is and always will be a watt.

'Nuff said.



Joe.

 

[Jimmy Riot]

 

[seanm]

I basically have two different types of gig where I have to provide an amp: with and without PA support for bass.

If I have PA support, then all I need is an amp good enough to use as a monitor and possibly to provide bass for the drummer.

If I don't have PA support, I only need enough power to match the drummer.

For both cases I use my 500W amp into two 250W cabs. For the PA case, I don't need the second cab, but I do need something to raise the amp off the ground. The second cab works great for this It helps that the cab only weighs 30 pounds.

 

[csipe1]

So, according to this discussion (and a previous FAQ), a 500W 4 Ohm head run through a rated 600W 8 Ohm cab will produce 250W maxed out. But it will leave me the option of adding a second 600W 8 Ohm cab. Now, each cabinet would put out 250W or 500W?

 

[staindbass]

i dont agree with the underpowered amp theory. my amps dont blow no matter how low i play them. i use 4000 watts rms amps (two crown macro techs) and play with about 800-1000 rms. what can i say, i dig the headroom. playing slap bass with that kind of headroom and less compression brings it to a whole new level, like gunshots. johnny a. staind.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

there is a huge practical sonic difference volume-wise between a 100w V4 and a 100w MosFet solid state nonsense amp or equivilant. You could double the solid-state numbers and I would still feel confidant in my stance.

I would use 6dB of peak compression with the SS amp and have the equivalent of 400 watts.
The SS versus Tube Watts myth is almost as pervasive as the Under-Powering Myth, and what they share is proponents who don't understand how amps and speakers work. The good news is that those proponents can learn how amps and speakers work; the bad is that most won't and will continue to believe the myths.

So, according to this discussion (and a previous FAQ), a 500W 4 Ohm head run through a rated 600W 8 Ohm cab will produce 250W maxed out. But it will leave me the option of adding a second 600W 8 Ohm cab. Now, each cabinet would put out 250W or 500W?

Cabs don't put out watts, they accept them and in return put out decibels. Go back through the FAQ, read, read, read. The Truth is In There.